bierock and a triple karmeliet

As a young person I would watch movies and store away images that I hoped would be recreated in real life for me as an adult.  One of the repeated montages featured a group of adults eating together at a big table, enthusiastically conversing with one another, sometimes in a group, often in small pairs.  It would be during evening at a pub or outside. There would always be a rustic meal surrounded by bottles of wine, steins of beer, and candles.  People would be smiling, exclaiming, gesturing with their hands, and maybe even some hearty laughs (the kind where your head is thrown back without care).  When I find myself really living these moments, I just have to sit back, take it all in, and be thankful.

the war and the mercy seat

Spit EP Jamie Barnes and Brooks Ritter release show at The 930.

Absent from flesh! illustrious day!
Surprising scene! triumphant stroke
That rends the prison of my clay;
And I can feel my fetters broke. 

Sunshine Marge

There is nothing like a little sunshine to fight the blues.

There is a beautiful painting Gerhard Richter made of his daughter, Betty, in the St. Louis Art Museum.  Every time I walked through the galleries, I would stop in front of this image and wonder how such an odd image became so compelling.  It was the inspiration for these images.  Betty can be seen here

a day in the life

Here is a record of the first day of my 26th year:

a good morning from Nancy's Bagel and Grounds

birthday presents from the art supply store

birthday presents from the unique supply store

lunch with anne, bet, mary grace, and ian

my favorite style of meal

i wasn't the only one to get presents

after-dinner fire pit

goodnight

Zack and Sarah

 

I dreamt of an ocean blue
Underwater you and me
Let's not swim to shore
Just float forever more

We could hide behind the sun
Where no one will upset our fun
Let's take off our shoes
And dance away the blues

Was your sweet kiss just a dream
So real the taste of tangerine
You are my best friend
Forever, now and then

                                -Clem Snide

lettin' the kids get bloody

 

 I am always amazed by how creative and awesome my kids' artwork can be.  I love to give them projects where I teach them a technique and then they use that technique to make their imagination come alive.  This fish is the result of a pinch-pot clay lesson I did with 5th grade.  I in no way dissuaded the children from creating dangerous or scary fish.  I also did not mind the creation of fangs, blood and dead fishes in big fishes' mouths.  This probably wasn't the best idea for school created art...but it sure was the best idea in the name of art! CHOMP. 

color me beautiful

Could you imagine what life would be like without color? 

vanilla scones and paper snakes

I stumbled across some photographs I took exactly two years ago.  There were from a small going away party I had with my coworkers in Bowling Green before I moved up to Louisville.  Those of you who have worked with Starbucks, know how close partners can grow.  My Starbucks' partners were the best guys in the world.  We shared our uncommon lives with each other just like family.  Going to work didn't seem so bad when you knew that people were willing to share your burdens.  These people are not in my life anymore, but I think of them often and I think of them fondly.

 

remember when it was warm?

 

I just want to sit outside again.  I like wearing cardigans; I like wearing pants.  I am done wearing parkas, snow boots, and gloves.

family tradition

While I was growing up, it seemed completely normal for me to be taken out of school for at least one Monday and Tuesday every mid November.  It was not until I hit Junior High that I realized I was the only kid at school that thought the deer hunting season meant no school.  It made sense for education to take a backseat to the gathering, securing, and processing of food necessary for survival right?  Well, maybe not essential to my or my family's survival...but it sure was a lot more economical and healthier than buying store meat.  I have so many memories of the whole Weber clan (mom's side) gathered together to butcher the men's catch (or trophies, if you will).  As youngsters, my cousins and I took lessons from our grandfather in the art of carving meat off of a thigh bone and how to get the last bit of scrap off of a rib.  We learned how to ground meat, encase sausages, and dry jerky.  We became apprentices to a dying art, a vanishing tradition.  It did not even register as gross to us - this was food, it was art, it was natural.  This last year, only my mom, dad, my aunt and me were there to clean, carve, and process the deer.  It was bittersweet to have lost so much family, but glad to be around those who were left.